Women Standing Up For Themselves

Women are often expected not to be angry or violent when faced with less than polite behavior or action. In The Female Man, Janet flips the script on pages 46 and 47. Janet fights a man that belittles and says outright disgusting things about her. Joanna doesn’t understand why Janet would do that and she looks into her little blue and pink books. In the blue book, it says after an argument, “Girl backs down- cries- manhood vindicated.” In the pink book, under “Brutality”, it says “Man’s temper is the woman’s fault. It is also the woman’s responsibility to patch things up after words.” Obviously the fight situation is exaggerated for the sake of the story, but Russ wants women to see that they should stand up for themselves and see the messed up ways women are expected to act. If a man, or any person for that matter, talks to another human being like that, something has to be said. And sometimes that’s all one has to do: say something and just shut the other person up/down. Violence isn’t the only or the best answer, but if someone puts their hands on you first, I feel you have the defend yourself. Runway model Gigi Hadid is learning that this isn’t the same idea for some. Hadid was recently walking through a crowd of people when a total stranger her picked her up from behind and would not let go. When she yelled at him to let go and he didn’t, she elbowed him in the face and punched him in the back when he set her down and ran away. Most media outlets have been supportive of Hadid and said her response to the attack was understandable and justified. Some outlets, however, have not been. Reports from The Sun and Daily Mail have called her actions “not model-like behavior” and said she “lashed out at a fan”. In the video, you can obviously see she is distressed and panicked. She did what she had to do to protect herself. But now, she has to defend defending herself. Society is still working on accepting women and their right to protect themselves, but media has a major influence. Most of the articles on Hadid weren’t negative, but it’s still sad to see the condemnation of a woman protecting herself regardless.